Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1509257
24 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2023 Cross-pollination really helps with our effi- ciency. Grunwald: I prepped for this call today by reviewing the IPC standards in our system. But they're only numbers; it's up to whoever is looking at them to know which ones have the information they need: "Here is this document for assembly, and here are the documents for design and manufacturing." But if you don't know, they're just numbers. IPC focuses very much on the assembly and manufacturing pro- cesses, and those specifications roll down to designers to help them make something that is manufacturable. You have configured the relevant standards into your internal documentation system. I imagine other service bureaus, or even bigger customers, would have some similar sort of documentation processes in place. Kolar: Sure. For some of our bigger custom- ers with large design teams, they have docu- mented standards around their libraries. I have seen multiple incarnations of docu- mentation standards, specific to libraries, for instance. All this begins with onboarding on the first day? Are your new hires generally experi- enced designers or complete newbies? Kolar: It's very hard to find experienced design- ers who work well in the world that we're in, where we're constantly changing the kind of cutting-edge work we do over a wide variety of designs. If somebody has been doing design for a specific type of thing for a long time at one company, they may not have kept up with what's happening in the industry. It can be hard for them to transition from the way they had been working internally to a ser- vice bureau mindset. We've seen many really struggle with it. We've ended up hiring designers right out of school with just a little bit of experience. Maybe they've had one other job, have messed some with design, and then they discovered that they really liked electrical engineering work. We'll train them because that's where we've had the most success vs. trying to bring in someone who's really seasoned. In the past, it had typically been either me or our COO saying, "Here's a practice proj- ect." ey would go through, work on it, ask us questions about what's in the documentation, and then somebody would mentor them as they work with the customer, learning as they go. Let's talk about acquiring IPC standards. How does this work as an IPC member? Kolar: ere are certain standards that are "packaged," and we prepaid for the standards that we care about. All of this happens digitally. It has helped that we have a new project check- list that includes questions that you should ask your customer when you're starting a project. is helps designers avoid saying, "Oh, by the way, I just realized that this is class 3 and 100 volts." Grunwald: It's a good idea to go through the specs listed on IPC's website, where you can usually get the first couple of pages of the stan- Jen Kolar